christopherbishop

Saturday, July 1, 2017

“OK students, boot up
your hololens projections and get ready to share with the class. The topic for
the project was “Colonizing a Comet”. As you know, the recent news of the
nanomanufacturing being conducted by our team on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko was very inspiring! I look forward to seeing what
you’ve created.”

Sound far fetched? In the next 30 years, we are going to see
advances in technology that will dramatically transform education all over the
globe - how content is created, how it is shared, how it is archived and the
level of impact it has. The evolution of learning models will advance society,
culture and business in totally unimagined ways.

Tech advances taking place daily are changing how people
interact not only in educational settings but much more broadly - how they
share ideas, how they create, how businesses are run, how children play. Our
grandchildren and great grandchildren will be learning in a very different
environment over the course of the coming decades.

The next few years

As forward thinkers like John Seely Brown have already described,
learning no longer occurs only in a “school” setting but rather all the time
everywhere in today’s global digital village. Traditional educational settings
are but one node on the broader ecosystem of learning environments where this
process - writ large - takes place.

All learning interaction can now have a digital component.
The idea of a classroom being a fixed place is outdated and arcane. While there
will always be physical locations whose main purpose is to provide a setting
for human interaction based on idea exchange and dialogue, the days of the
historical classroom are being replaced by the global digital agora.

As technology makes geography history, students are no
longer limited by what they can learn in a physical space. Using various tools
that simulate and expand real world interaction - augmented reality,
holographic projections, 3D TV, virtual worlds and others yet to be invented -
learners are increasingly able to find knowledge across an ever expanding
universe of resources that are form-factor and location agnostic. Looking for a
15th illuminated manuscript or an Instagram photo from the ISS, a Neolithic
cave painting in Indonesia or the Pope’s latest Tweet? It’s all available 24/7
on almost any device. And the amount of information being created and made
available is growing at a staggering pace.

near term: what to look for...

Mobile to wearables

Where laptop computers and tablets once held sway, we are
seeing a dramatic shift toward mobile and wearable technologies. Smart watches
can connect devices and facilitate capture and transfer of information. The
continually decreasing viscosity of data makes learning from non-traditional tech
devices much more viable. A range of info can be sent to and from wearable
devices - perhaps you might take a course remotely with your watch as one of
the tools you use to interact with the information and the students and
teachers. Video conferencing on a wearable is not far off.

Eventually we will see smart wearables that project 3D
images - either above the device or onto a nearby surface. For certain use
cases and content areas, this will be an ideal way to share and learn. Think of
a mechanic in a tight spot under a vehicle having the schematic of a wiring
harness projected holographically out of his watch or headset or wrench.

Ultra hi def mobile video

More and more educational settings are taking advantage of
TelePresence or video conferencing capabilities. As this solution gets simpler,
more stable and less expensive, tools like Skype, FaceTime and Google Hangouts
allow video interaction around the globe in real time at basically no cost.

“Come on everyone, sit
down on the blankets here in the yurt and turn on the screen - Professor Smith
from MIT is sending video from his handheld to teach us howMongols conquered all of China and established the Yuan Dynasty over 800 years ago.”

MOOCs/SPOCs

MOOCs
(massively open online courses) and SPOCs (small private online courses) are
already transforming the way learning is conducted. Ever since Sebastian Thrun,
a Stanford professor, offered a free course on Artificial Intelligence in 2011
and over 160K people signed up, the idea has been taken up by the likes of
Harvard, MIT and Yale. Not to mention the fact that major corporate users
including Microsoft and LinkedIn are exploring this powerful model in private
sector settings.

This new model is making significant inroads into how
education is delivered on a massive scale to interested learners on the
increasingly borderless and flattened planet, on any device.

Students that would never have been able to connect to the
smartest teachers in the world due to lack of funding, inability to travel or
other reasons, can now experience and learn from the best - by logging in from
almost anywhere.

What’s ahead...and way ahead

Implantable/ingestable electronics

Millennial and digital natives - people who
never took a breath without the Internet being available - will be early
adopters when it comes to this new family of electronics.

People are already having chips put under their skin,
similar to what is done with dogs. But this new breed will be two way and
synchronous, providing real-time connectivity. Think of it as Bluetooth for
your forearm. Information will be loaded into your cerebral cortex from
transmitting devices attached to data sources - all pre-selected by the user.

“OK class, here is today’s learning tablet - and a glass of
water to help you swallow it. Get ready to feel cold - we are going to the
Antarctic for an hour!. The effect will wear off by the time you are ready to
go home.”

Augmented and additive reality

Augmented reality will become a standard for creating and
sharing blended, partially immersive learning experiences. A class will put on
augmented reality headsets and have a *learning journey* together.

The Microsoft HoloLens is setting the stage for
this. When ready for prime time, this headset-based device will allow users to
create 3D objects holographically and then 3D print them for further study.
Gone are the renditions of the solar system created from painted foam balls stuck
together with pipe cleaners. You will 3D print all the planets at whatever
scale you like and then walk around them and then and climb over them.

These devices overlay data, images and video onto what
people are seeing in the real world. Information about objects will appear
simply by focusing on them. Historical data on a building will be listed when
you look at it - the year it was built, name of the architect, socio-historical
context. Pre-designed environments based on specific topics will allow teacher
and students to walk through a medieval castle or stroll along the Great Wall
as it was being built. All the while providing relevant information, directed
by the learner.

Immersive and virtual reality

The increasing power and availability of virtual reality
devices like Oculus
Rift, Samsung Gear VR and Google
Cardboard will allow learning environments that are completely
immersive and richly experiential in ways that were never before possible.

Current uses are pretty crude - like riding on a Ferris
Wheel or sliding over a cliff into the sea. But more and more real world
learning use cases are being developed. A doctor will be able to walk through a
virtual human body followed by new surgeons, describing what musculature to be
sensitive to and what blood vessels to avoid in order to conduct a successful
operation.

Teachers will take students back in time to visit an
historic event. Educational content will be created to be experiential and
collaborative, not one to many.

“Everyone put on your
personal virtual reality headset and strap into your framework. Get ready to
follow me - we are heading to 13th Century England to meet King John at
Runnymede and watch him sign the Magna Carta. Careful - don’t step in the horse
poop!”

neural science and what to learn

Advances in neuroscience and nanotech will allow learners to
connect directly to their physiology/neural wiring.

The capability will exist to conduct analysis on current and
future in-demand skills across the globe - analyzing situations to identify
gaps and opportunities driven by economic, cultural, political and social
trends.

Then, projecting your own skills portfolio onto these
models, you receive insight into how your current and anticipated skills will
translate to real world roles over the course of a 100+ year lifespan.

“This week-end, I am
conducting my quarterly Antenna Analysis. After entering data from my current
TalentScan showing my skills and proclivities, I’ll map this to the model of
trending data showing where the planet is heading from a social, political,
cultural and business standpoint. The result will be a mapping report that
identifies any gaps in my current skills and ones I will need to acquire to be
successful in the ever morphing socio-business landscape.”

bigger picture impact

Get ready for new tech approaches to redefine learning in
ways that will look like magic to those of us sitting here in 2015. Your
grandchildren will using tools and accessing information in ways and on a scale
we can hardly imagine. Technologies that don't exist today will be commonplace
in 2050.

These technology breakthroughs will transform how
information is distributed but more importantly will accelerate the progress of
humankind. These exciting advances will foster creativity, drive innovation and
facilitate societal and cultural progress.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Early this morning I had my first
real encounter with pocket AI. Promptly at 8:30 am, a notice popped up
on my phone saying I should leave for the airport immediately in order
to not miss my flight!What?White text popping out from a red background. Google Now
had checked my calendar and noticed that I was flying to Dallas from
LaGuardia and would probably drive down I 95 to get there. But after
consulting Waze,
the crowdsourced traffic monitoring tool, it determined that the
highway was very congested. Not only that, but it noticed that there had
been an accident on the access ramp near where I usually get on I 95
from Route 7. This app suggested a couple of other possible routes that
would be faster based on the data it had assembled and analyzed. And
together - they determined I would have to leave ASAP to make the plane.While
I was strolling through dreamland, these apps were talking to each
other in the dulcet tones of machine language. Inside the glass-covered
rectangle next to my bed, major processing and rationalizing had been
taking place - identifying the fact that I was traveling, where I was
going, how I might get there and what the implications were for my
schedule.Then it hit me. Imagine the powerful implications this
kind of portable interrelational computation will have on improving the
lives of the 4 billion people living at the base of the pyramid.A farmer in rural Africa will has his livestock chip-enabled.
Aggregated and rationalized data would appear on his smartphone about
courses of action if there were issues: the animals appear dehydrated –
check the water supply. Need more protein – add a richer source to their
diet. Pocket AI could provide the name and contact info of a local vet
if more serious problems were identified. Perhaps even schedule an
appointment and provide directions.A woman running a small business in a remote location in India will receive an application on her phone for a grant from the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
available only to women-owned businesses. Included will be contact
information for a potential new partner perfectly matched to sell her
products, as well as a list of pre-screened candidates eager to work for
her - based on the projected growth trajectory of her business. Pocket
AI then provides a model outlining additional revenue potential over the
next five years and makes suggestions for other investments to support
the recommended approach.How else might we use pocket AI
to improve lives of those struggling at the bottom of the global
economy? Please share your ideas.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

After 3 years,
all employees, especially ones at large companies, should receive a
personalized pink slip from the CEO. The content would read:
"Dear
Ex-employee - it has come to my attention that you are still here. Why
haven’t you left yet? We have innovation to conduct and disruptive
business models to evolve. Why aren't you working as our advocate at a
client? Or for a business partner? Or somewhere in our supply chain? Why
didn't you leave and start a company we want to buy? Good luck, thanks
for your contribution. Now beat it."

Having labored in the bowels
of a sprawling global multinational company for a decade and a half I
have strong feelings about how long employees should work in one place.
Their level of engagement often diminishes over time and the only thing
they get really good at is navigating the processes and policies of the
mothership.

Three years should be the top end, the limit in this
current climate. And it should get shorter in the next decade. People
should understand when they are hired that they will have a few years at
most to contribute, to learn the ropes, to take advantage of any
educational opportunities, to internalize the culture, to build their
network and establish their credibility and value. Then they will be
dumped.

Given the rate and pace at which companies are changing
and business models are evolving, this only makes sense. There are going
to be way too many interesting opportunities available to potential
employees. It is unrealistic for a company to think they can entice
anyone to stay in their employ for very long. But don't take my word for
it.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that today's learners will have
12-15 jobs during their working life. Because they want to - not because they have to.

Successful
companies' models will evolve and change so that certain aspects of
their organizations will increasingly become unrecognizable. In order to
accommodate these kinds of seismic shifts, companies will have to be
much more fluid in how they manage employee acquisition and retention
but more importantly - termination.

It is a model that has been
practiced by consulting firms for decades. An evolution of the up or out
approach. If you don’t make partner within a certain amount of time you
are expected to find a "different opportunity". Hopefully at a client.

Put
simply, after a specified (read: short) amount of time, the corporation
should ask employees why they are still collecting a paycheck - no
matter what their historically documented level of contribution is.
Disruptive globally-tentacled business models require too much agility
and flexibility to let workers just wallow and proselytize.

Employees
should have this guidance from day one. As part of the on-boarding
process, talk about off-boarding. Describe the parameters. Ask them to
do their best. Know that their tenure is limited. Build it into their
plans. Make it a part of their psyche. Then tell them to get to
work...for the duration.

This model is going to become key as work
writ large is conducted more and more on a project basis. Teams of
people from different disciplines will come together to work, resolve an
issue, solve a problem over a certain time frame and then disband to
move on to the next engagement. MIT professor Tom Malone shares this insight eloquently in his terrific book "The Future of Work".

So
whether you are comfortably ensconced in your current employer’s bosom
or are considering taking a job at a rapidly evolving company, I hope
for your sake that you get a pink slip sooner than later. It will serve
you well in the long run.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Harvesting
– key to a sustainable energy strategy

Millions of kilowatts of kinetic energy are created every
day (and night) by unmanaged sources within our current global culture. Energy that
is unfortunately lost as heat or movement. A thoughtful strategic plan for
energy management requires focus on finding ways to capture, store and
distribute this kind of energy.

This area is typically divided into two general
categories:

·Movement: piezoelectric
devices containing ceramics or polymers can self-generate power through being
squeezed or stretched.

·Temperature: thermoelectric
devices based on materials that create a charge through changes in temperature

There are many places where energy could be captured and exploited.

Large scale:

bridges shaking as cars roll over them

subways zooming through subterranean tunnel

heat from airplane engines and smokestacks

Small scale:

people walking on urban streets or in office
buildings

pushing a cart through a grocery store

waste heat from vehicle exhaust pipes

This field represents an exciting new area for
exploration and for #futurework. Share your thoughts.

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Hereis a BBC article about a company in England called Pavgen building floor tiles
that capture energy. For info on the Metrology of Energy Harvesting go here.